Body Image Warrior Week: Margarita Tartakovsky of Weightless

This afternoon, I bring you Margarita Tartakovsky. Over on her blog Weightless, you’ll find thought-provoking interviews with psychologists, researchers and other folks out on the front lines of ED recovery and treatment, as well as beautifully-written inspiration and advice. This essay would be a lovely example of the latter.

Loving Your Body, No Conditions Necessary.

I used to think that in order to love my body or really just tolerate it, I had to be thin. I had to have a flat stomach, small hips and sky-high cheekbones.

And I had to earn this love, this tolerance. I had to earn it at the gym — punitively pounding the pavement of a treadmill — and at the dinner table — carefully, nervously watching what I ate.

I used to think that I didn’t deserve to feel good about my body or myself overall because my figure didn’t fit the above criteria. Instead, there was softness and curves and rounder cheeks.

And so I wondered and worried, how could I love a body that supposedly didn’t deserve it? I wanted to, but I truly believed — with all of my being — that I wasn’t allowed to. I’m not sure where these prescriptions came from. It was probably a mix of society’s stringent physical standards and my own perspective, a lens colored for so long by a shaky sense of self.

But either way, I felt that I couldn’t enjoy my body until I’d lost weight. Until I did what I came to believe was the exclusive path to body love.

Recently I read a powerful guest post by Rebecca Soule on Anna Guest-Jelley’s beautiful blog Curvy Yoga. Soule wrote a letter to herself on Valentine’s Day. She made the following vow to herself:

“So today, on Valentine’s Day, a day to celebrate love, I celebrate my love for you: for better for worse, in health and happiness, in creaky joints and achy knees, laughter lines and all, this life, this moment, this earth, until my spirit departs from you.”

The part about the creaky joints and achy knees really gave me pause because it refers to loving your body through it all. Through running for miles and through lying on the couch sidelined by sickness. Through losing weight and through gaining it back. Through the roller-coaster of emotional and physical ups and downs. Without conditions. Without specific criteria.

And it makes so much sense. It’s what we do for others. When we love someone — a boyfriend, a best friend, our parents, our kids — we love them unconditionally. We don’t keep track of random criteria that the person must fulfill. We don’t think about them earning our love — whether at the gym or at the dinner table. We don’t think about their qualities, especially their physical traits, as currency.

So why wait to respect our bodies based on a singular, random ideal? A standard essentially set by the very companies that profit from our insecurities, hang-ups and regular body-bashing?

Our bodies are intricate and complex machines and breathtaking works of art. They work behind the scenes on the bare essentials — like breathing, moving, seeing, hearing, touching — so we can go after our dreams. So we can make our art. So we can make babies. So we can give love. Give hugs. Cook a delicious meal. Savor that meal, bite by tasty bite. Dance. Learn something new. Laugh.

Our bodies are vehicles that take us to amazing places, whether we get there through our feet or our hands. Whether we physically arrive at a destination, are able to read about it or compose a story.

We don’t need to wait until we have blemish-free, wrinkle-free skin to respect, appreciate and love ourselves. We don’t need to wait until we shed X amount of pounds. We don’t need to wait until we have a muscular stomach or a tinny tiny waist.

And we don’t need to stop respecting, appreciating or loving our bodies when we can’t do a certain exercise, or when we’re sick or tired or bloated.

Perfection — whatever that means to you, whether it’s continuously performing at your peak or having a sculpted stomach — isn’t a prerequisite for a positive body image, and it’s certainly not a prerequisite for appreciating and loving ourselves as a whole.

If it were, no one would love. No one would be loved.

But this couldn’t be further from the truth.

Love, of course, exists. And it exists in all shapes, sizes, colors, forms and flavors.

Margarita Tartakovsky is an associate editor at Psych Central. She also writes Weightless, a blog that covers everything from building a positive body image to ditching dieting to becoming a smart consumer to recovering from eating disorders. You can learn more about Margarita and her work at her personal website.

February 27 – March 3 is Body Image Warrior Week. Throughout the course of this week, you’ll read posts from an inspiring group of women who fight hard against body image oppression through their own words and work.